Charlotte: Everyone knows you only get two great loves in your life.Carrie: Everyone who? Where’d you get that?Charlotte: I read it in a magazine.Miranda: What magazine, “Convenient Theories for You Monthly”?

[Charlotte has just told the girls about a magazine article she read which said that a woman only gets two “great loves” in her lifetime]Charlotte: So far I’ve only had one great love – Trey.
[to Miranda]Charlotte: How many great loves have you had?Miranda: Zero.Carrie: Really? What about Steve?Miranda: Steve’s a friend, not a core-shaker.Samantha: Well, I’m done with great love. I’m back to great lovers.Miranda: [to Carrie] You?Carrie: I refuse to define love in those limited termsMiranda: [laughing] I had to!Charlotte: Oh, come on Carrie! Aidan and Big!
[Charlotte pauses as she realizes what she just said. Carrie looks up at her]Carrie: One, two. And according to you, I’m done!Charlotte: No, no, it was a stupid article. It was at the dentist!Carrie: No, no, no, no, too late now. You said it, it’s over for me. “Here lies Carrie. She had two loves and lots o’ shoes.”

It makes me wonder if it’s possible to have more than one soulmate. I think typically most people associate the term soulmate with one person. Whether you find that person, or can make yourself be happy with that one person is irrelevant, although in theory neither of those should be an issue, right? You should find them and “instantly” be happy with them. There is one person out there that is destined to complete you.

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”
– Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Honestly, I’ve always been the kind of person that fell under that category but as I’ve grown, gotten older and discovered more about myself I’ve started to wonder how that could possibly be true.

How is it possible that we are wandering this planet, full of people, in search of that one person that is just meant to be?

It feels weird to be posing a question like that to myself considering that, at the same time I’m asking this, I still believe in destiny, fate and everything happening for a reason.
My mind feels like a great big contradiction right now.

The thing is, when I fall in love, I fall hard.

It’s hard not to believe that when you feel so strongly and passionately about someone that they aren’t “meant to be.”

Some people believe that you don’t truly fall in love until you’ve found the person you call your soulmate but I find that hard to believe in. Even despite all of the heartaches and the heartbreaks I wouldn’t change my mind about how I felt – I wouldn’t look back and say “you know what, I wasn’t in love with him, or him – it had to have been something else.”
It might not have been perfect love but I still think it was love, at least on some level.

With every love and and every heartbreak I feel like I’ve grown and matured – I definitely learned something whether it was about men, myself, relationships or human nature. I feel like I’ve become more self-aware.

Along with all of that I’ve felt like with every love and every heartbreak my definition of soulmate has developed a little bit. Like maybe these people have come into my life to teach me something and prepare me for that one person that I’m truly meant to be with, like we’ve had life lessons to teach each other and once they’ve been learned it’s time to move on.

I don’t know.
I think my opinion changes a little bit everyday. I kind of sway back and forth between ideas. I just can’t settle on one. I feel like it’s something I’ll never really know or understand until after it’s happened. Until I can reflect back on it – because hindsight is always 20/20, right?

At the moment, I think that Elizabeth Gilbert summed it up perfectly in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ when she said:

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…”
— Elizabeth Gilbert

But who knows, maybe both ideas are right. There are soulmates out there that come into your life just to introduce personal development and then that one soulmate that is the person you’ve been changing your life for – the one that is meant to be and meant to come into your life and stay.

They say, though, when you meet your soulmate there is a feeling of complete intimacy and complete connection. To me, that sounds like perfection.

14 thoughts on “Soulmates, Theories, and Ideas.”

I believed that marriage was forever. I think that’s why most of us get married, right? Well, it didn’t work out that way for me.

Soulmates… well… I believe that we’re all soulmates, honestly. I believe there is opportunity for growth in every encounter and every relationship. Maybe that sounds new agey but yeah, from what I’ve experienced the last 5 years, I’d say it was true. I wouldn’t be who or where I am today if I hadn’t had the previous experiences/relationships.

I think there is some truth to a “Mr. Right Now” vs. a “Mr. RIght”. I mean, we’re all changing, ALL THE TIME. We’d like to think that someone would change with us or accept us as we change… and maybe THAT is your “perfect and forever one”. If not, it doesn’t mean that love goes away. It simply gets released into every next relationship you enter into. Then that person fits you, in that time of your life, etc. and so on.

At least, when I look back and see something closer to 20/30 or 20/40 (vs. 20/20), that’s what it seems to me.

Honestly I think “soulmates” is a garbage term. I believe we’re compatible with many people and yes I’m married. I believe we learn to accept/adapt/appreciate whoever is our partner. I don’t think it means there’s only one specific person for each of us. That just can’t be the case. There are way too many types of people for us to meet. SATC reruns are killing me. As I’ve gotten older, that show bugs me more and more. Carrie’s character really annoys the shit out of me, not that you asked. I just felt I needed to share.

I like what T had to say about us all being soulmates. That made me smile.

I personally don’t think there is such a thing as romantic soulmates necessarily. But I think there are different levels of compatibility. And there are only a handful of people in this world that are absolutely compatible with you. It’s hard to meet those people because the time and circumstances must be right. So it seems like magic when you finally do meet one. Your friends also fall into the spectrum of compatibility. They aren’t the outer most circle, but they are close. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. It’s just my personal theory.

I used to be a “romantic” and believe in that one perfect person for me. Now my “romantic” idea is more like Elizabeth Gilbert’s. I don’t believe that there is only one person out there who is perfect for me, there are plenty. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately actually because I think it flows right in to my current wonderings on whether or not I’d get married again. Not to say that I wouldn’t get married because I want to keep my options open. I truly did want to stay married forever, but based on reasons why I left, that would have been impossible. Now I wonder if I believe in “forever” or if I believe more in taking it a day at a time and seeing where it goes.

I’m a firm believer in taking things one day at a time.
You never know what is going to happen so live in the now and don’t worry about what’s going to happen, but don’t expect to have forever to fix or change it either.

Her quote said everything I was thinking so perfectly, I don’t think I could have written it better myself.

I don’t know if I believe in soulmates. I did for a long time until I got married. Once I saw how much work goes into a marriage, it made it hard to believe in the idea that there’s someone tailor made for you. If there was, then why is it so hard?!

I guess I’m the wrong person to ask as my romantic life is kind of crappy, so are those of my friends (except my BFF & her hubby & one other couple) & my best guy friend’s girlfriend is an insufferable bitch who’s rude to me @ all times.

I think the belief in soulmates is more important than having one. The idea that if we keep fighting & trying & working, eventually we’ll find that other half that makes love worthwhile. So, keep looking lover, & everything will be okay.

Sometimes your soulmate is a friend (platonic) vs. a love interest (I think) and sometimes it’s even the same gender. I do believe there are many people who “fit” you…and sometimes they are your friends. It doesn’t mean you don’t fall in love hard…I just never believed in the soulmate theory.

I guess I’m pragmatic because I’ve never accepted the idea of “soulmates”. I think that most of us have multiple other people out there in the world that, in the right place and time, we could be happy with and build a life. Whether that works out for any particular pair depends on where they are in life and the extenuating circumstances of the moment, and the trick is finding one of your potential matches at the time you are both aligned in life goals, and then to move forward together. That sounds confusing to me. Maybe I should make a graph.